index parameter limit

[maincharName]

Is there a way to use more than two parameters with the find pattern in string function? I want to do this incase the variable response contains a variation of the word "take", like "get" or "pick up".

I can get around this, but I'd be making a helix of 'if' statements to match the complexity of human DNA.

I was told last week that the register function should work, but I can't find any information on it.

Also, please keep in mind that I just started programming a week and a half ago.

[person]

Write one if statement in a function, and then reuse that function

[maincharName]

code:

var response: string loop get response: * if index ( response, "take" ) not = 0 then   if index ( response, "key" ) not = 0 then   put "You have taken the key."   exit   else     put "There is only one attainable object in this room, and that is a key."   end if else   put "What do you want with the key?" end if end loop

That would work, but only if every time someone wanted to take something it was a key. This would be used within many different instances within a text-based game.

[person]

Use parameters.

code:

fuction stuff (item1:string)       put item1 end stuff

[maincharName]

I'm sorry for not being more clear. What I wanted was to search the string variable 'responce' for "take", "get", and "pick up" and knowing that there is at least one of these words within the variable 'responce' then I can go ahead and search for the items.

[maincharName]

I'm signing off, thank you anyway.

[chrispminis]

Hmm, if I'm interpreting your question right, you speak of how to recognize all variations of a word without repetitive coding. Variations such as "key", "Key", "kEY", etc?

If so, the solution is simple. Do your regular check but right before that, convert the entire string to lower or upper case using Str.Lower or Str.Upper. Here is the adjusted code.

code:

var response: string loop get response: * response := Str.Lower (response) if index ( response, "take" ) not = 0 then   if index ( response, "key" ) not = 0 then   put "You have taken the key."   exit   else     put "There is only one attainable object in this room, and that is a key."   end if else   put "What do you want with the key?" end if end loop

[Delos]

That's a good approach - however, it doesn't cover the possibility that 'take' is synonymous to 'get'. (So if the User typed "get kEY" or "take KeY", then the resultant action would be the same. Why the random case-shift? No reason ).

Ok, so what we're getting at here is having a dictionary of commands that can be used for various actions. Certain actions have several unique identifiers associated with them.
Let's continue with your example of picking up a key. We have a key present in the environment, and the User wishes to retrieve it. They may use:
- pick up
- get
- take
And likely more. We'll leave it at three for now.

The User inputs a command string. Let's say it's "get key". We now want to parse this and determine whether a command exists. Since we have several command-phrases relating to the same command, we can just cycle through each of them checking them against the inputted string.

So:

code:

% Pseudo code! declare:   response (string)   action_get (array: {"pick up", "get", "take"}) input:   get response parse:   for i : 1 to upper bound of action_get     if action_get (i) is in response then       perform_action_get   end

Simple eh? The challenging part of this will be streamlining it so that you can easily reference your commands. It is about this point that you'll want to start incorporating fcns.
A little used aspect of records is their ability to hold fcns/procedures etc. This is a little limiting in that the specified fcn structure and the one to be used must match directly.

code:

fcn hello1 () : string    result "Hello World" end hello1 fcn hello2 (inStr : string) : string    result "Hello World, " + inStr end hello2 type greet :    record       name : string       FCN : fcn hello () : string    end record var test : greet test.name := "Oboro" test.FCN := hello1 % test.FCN := hello2 % This will crash due to incompatability of fcns. put test.FCN (), ", ", test.name

You can use this idea to compartmentalise the various actions in your proggie.